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A couple of weeks ago, we announced with Google that our teleconferencing product, UberConference, was now integrated with Google Hangouts. The response we got from that announcement was almost overwhelming. Our biggest day of new customer signups-ever.

Which is great for us, and we couldn’t be happier or prouder. But let’s step back a moment and answer the question: why is this a big deal for you?

Well, first of all, UberConference and Google Hangouts are just about perfect matches for one another. Google Hangouts is a wonderful tool for video conferencing- it’s easy to use, and it works great, provided everyone is sitting in front of a computer that has a video camera, and your internet connection is solid.

But that’s not often the case with real life business calls. Many times you have callers who are on the road, riding in the back of a cab to the airport, stuck in a hotel room with a bad internet connection or don’t have a webcam immediately available. Or, frankly, don’t really want to be seen and are in no mood to get dressed at 5 a.m. in Los Angeles for an 8 a.m. conference call with New York.

Enter UberConference. When you use UberConference with Google Hangouts, you can take the conference call out of the confines of the office and out into the real world where you, your coworkers and your customers are living and working and doing business.
Plus, UberConference allows you to join a Google Hangout without a webcam. Or at least without turning on your webcam.

Then there’s the size of your conference calls. Google Hangouts is limited to 15 participants. By integrating with UberConference, that conference call can now add in another 100 participants.

The UberConference integration with Google Hangouts, however, was only part of the announcement. At the same time Google also announced its Google Chromebox for meetings.

For small to medium-sized businesses, what’s not to love about this product? Up until now, if your company did regular video conferencing, you were spending at least $10,000 on hardware for a video conferencing system.

What’s your investment cost with Google Chromebox for meetings? About $1,500. The Chromebox hardware package, which includes UberConference, is just under $1,000. Buy yourself an HD TV for another $500, and you’re set. You’ve got a complete video conferencing system for a fraction of the cost of existing systems.

And this is just the beginning of innovative, low-cost products we’re going to be rolling out for you. Stay tuned.

It was great sponsoring the Startup Grind event last night that featured the fireside chat with Matt Rogers, co-founder of Nest. The event was packed, and it was nice to see the big turn out and have the opportunity to meet a bunch of new people. It was also cool to be back in Google Start Up Labs, where the event was hosted, which was also the first office for Firespotter, though in those early days we were in the building across the street. The new building is even nicer.

Matt shared a number of interesting learnings and experiences from his career starting from getting his dream job at Apple as an intern on the early iPod team through his success founding Nest. It was interesting to hear about the secrecy and corporate culture inside of Apple and how that translated into successful PR for the company. Matt talked about how many of the things he learned and people he met at Apple evolved into the strategies he used and people he hired at Nest. He also shared several insightful tips on founding a company, creating great products, working with VCs, and building a rock star team.

The Cloud Awards have officially announced UberConference as the winner of Most Promising Start-Up 2014.

Cloud Awards organizer Larry Johnson said: “The standard of entries in this year’s cloud computing awards was not just high. It was in the stratosphere, with astronomical competition. We are extremely pleased to endorse UberConference as a cloud services provider disrupting business models and leveraging cloud technologies.”

Congratulations to all other winners and nominees. We are extremely proud to win Most Promising Start-Up and on behalf of UberConference, we are excited to innovate in the year ahead.